A lobster diver in Massachusetts is happy to be alive after he was swallowed whole by a Humpback whale on Friday morning.
Veteran lobster diver Michael Packard said he had just jumped off his boat for his second dive of the day when he “felt this huge bump and everything went dark.”
At first he thought be was inside a great white shark, but he couldn’t feel any teeth and that’s when he realized he was actually in a whale’s mouth.
“Oh my God I’m in a whale’s mouth…….and he’s trying to swallow me,”‘ Packard told CBS Boston.
He told the Cape Cod Times that he “was completely inside; it was completely black. I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way I’m getting out of here. I’m done, I’m dead.’ All I could think of was my boys — they’re 12 and 15 years old.”
He said he started to struggle and the whale began to shake its head before it resurfaced and spat him out. He estimates he was inside the animal’s mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds.
“I saw light, and he started throwing his head side to side, and the next thing I knew I was outside (in the water),” he said.
Packard was taken to the hospital after the incident but was released Friday afternoon with “a lot of soft tissue damage” but no broken bones.
He plans to return to lobster diving as soon as he is better.
Jooke Robbins, director of Humpback Whale Studies at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown told the Cape Cod Times that the incident was likely a mistake on the part of the whale since Humpbacks are not aggressive, especially with humans.